I appreciate the thoughtfulness of much of this column. What I don't appreciate is the creepy comment about transgender creepiness (please spare us your bigotry toward trans people) and the arrogant pretension to know what the director's motives are (mind read much?).
What’s creepy to me (well, creepy is almost never a good analytical word) is you being creeped out guy a different point of view regarding Elliot Page. You’re too free with the “bigotry” slur.
You've just shot yourself in the foot, Tim, by implying that your own comment is creepy. As for bigotry, finding an entire group creepy, regardless of individual differences among their members, is a classic example of bigotry. Just substitute "black man" or "Jew" or "Muslim" or "woman with short hair who aren't traditionally feminine." You're too free with your dismissal of the bigotry slur, though I actually agree with you that the slur is sometimes unfair. Sneering at trans people isn't one of the times.
Note that I did not say or imply that trans people are somehow second class citizens or should be deprived of their rights to live their lives as they please.
I said creepy. Perhaps not the best choice of words.
What are your thoughts on this:
“Aversions to visible physical disabilities are recognized by evolutionary and social psychologists not as inherent malice, but as an intersection of over-inclusive evolutionary disease-avoidance mechanisms (Park et al., 2003) alongside social conditioning and existential anxieties regarding human fragility (American Psychological Association, 2021)."
Your next argument will no doubt be that trans is not a physical disability. Debatable. Amputations are though, which brings us to this:
"An aversion to people with visible disabilities, amputations, or malformed limbs is a common human psychological reaction, typically rooted in evolutionary biology, social conditioning, and personal anxieties rather than inherent malice."
Definitely not the best choice of words. While we're talking about irrational aversions, consider my own analogies: someone's being creeped out by black men, etc. Those analogies seem to me much more accurate than yours involving amputations etc. Let's be real: Elliot Page is a transman who looks like a biological man; you basically have admitted that you wouldn't react to him as you did if he weren't transgender. So any creepiness you detect is your own discomfort with transgender identity--a discomfort so great you find it worthy of serious mention in a mostly thoughtful column about a major controversial movie. Anyone who feels the same way as you is a bigot too: bigotry loves company. You and they no doubt have good qualities; I'm not saying you're evil. But what you said was contemptible, and your analogies were contemptible too. And the reason (at least in part) is that it never seems to have crossed your mind how hurtful what you have said is or would be to many transgender people, or how you promote hostility to them.. And no, I'm not trans, but I have friends who are, and I know how they feel about people like you--people they encounter on a regular basis. Please reconsider your behavior and your defense of it.
I made no such implication about my own comment. I made a “meta” comment about the use of “creepy,” which you later elaborated on. I did imply that we shouldn’t jump the moral gun and presuppose that any discussion of how one feels about classes of people is automatically bigotry = (for me) unthinking prejudice. You can’t avoid such “bigotry” yourself, automatically condemning Mr. Black Flag for his views as a bigot. He may be ultimately misguided, but shutting down discussion with absolute certainty is also unthinking and more patience is better. Your comment on his admittedly thoughtful discussion completely sidetracked the discussion.
People who think they're kittens or puppies or born in the wrong body are creepy, the same way that a mentally-ill homeless person covered in shit on the L Train is creepy. The left wants to degrade all of our evolved threat-detection capabilities and then run roughshod over us.
The idea that transgender identity is a mental illness is so profoundly ignorant that it qualifies as bigotry on steroids. Every major medical and psychological organization in the U.S. that has taken a stand on transgender identity has denied that it is a mental illness. I'm talking about the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics; likewise btw for the World Health Organization. And what exactly are your qualifications, baby daddy, for diagnosing transgender people? I should add that your evidence-free insinuation that trans people pose a threat just makes your bigotry worse.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of much of this column. What I don't appreciate is the creepy comment about transgender creepiness (please spare us your bigotry toward trans people) and the arrogant pretension to know what the director's motives are (mind read much?).
What’s creepy to me (well, creepy is almost never a good analytical word) is you being creeped out guy a different point of view regarding Elliot Page. You’re too free with the “bigotry” slur.
You've just shot yourself in the foot, Tim, by implying that your own comment is creepy. As for bigotry, finding an entire group creepy, regardless of individual differences among their members, is a classic example of bigotry. Just substitute "black man" or "Jew" or "Muslim" or "woman with short hair who aren't traditionally feminine." You're too free with your dismissal of the bigotry slur, though I actually agree with you that the slur is sometimes unfair. Sneering at trans people isn't one of the times.
I'm a bigot, eh?
Interesting take.
Note that I did not say or imply that trans people are somehow second class citizens or should be deprived of their rights to live their lives as they please.
I said creepy. Perhaps not the best choice of words.
What are your thoughts on this:
“Aversions to visible physical disabilities are recognized by evolutionary and social psychologists not as inherent malice, but as an intersection of over-inclusive evolutionary disease-avoidance mechanisms (Park et al., 2003) alongside social conditioning and existential anxieties regarding human fragility (American Psychological Association, 2021)."
Your next argument will no doubt be that trans is not a physical disability. Debatable. Amputations are though, which brings us to this:
"An aversion to people with visible disabilities, amputations, or malformed limbs is a common human psychological reaction, typically rooted in evolutionary biology, social conditioning, and personal anxieties rather than inherent malice."
I doubt I am the only person who feels this way.
Definitely not the best choice of words. While we're talking about irrational aversions, consider my own analogies: someone's being creeped out by black men, etc. Those analogies seem to me much more accurate than yours involving amputations etc. Let's be real: Elliot Page is a transman who looks like a biological man; you basically have admitted that you wouldn't react to him as you did if he weren't transgender. So any creepiness you detect is your own discomfort with transgender identity--a discomfort so great you find it worthy of serious mention in a mostly thoughtful column about a major controversial movie. Anyone who feels the same way as you is a bigot too: bigotry loves company. You and they no doubt have good qualities; I'm not saying you're evil. But what you said was contemptible, and your analogies were contemptible too. And the reason (at least in part) is that it never seems to have crossed your mind how hurtful what you have said is or would be to many transgender people, or how you promote hostility to them.. And no, I'm not trans, but I have friends who are, and I know how they feel about people like you--people they encounter on a regular basis. Please reconsider your behavior and your defense of it.
I made no such implication about my own comment. I made a “meta” comment about the use of “creepy,” which you later elaborated on. I did imply that we shouldn’t jump the moral gun and presuppose that any discussion of how one feels about classes of people is automatically bigotry = (for me) unthinking prejudice. You can’t avoid such “bigotry” yourself, automatically condemning Mr. Black Flag for his views as a bigot. He may be ultimately misguided, but shutting down discussion with absolute certainty is also unthinking and more patience is better. Your comment on his admittedly thoughtful discussion completely sidetracked the discussion.
People who think they're kittens or puppies or born in the wrong body are creepy, the same way that a mentally-ill homeless person covered in shit on the L Train is creepy. The left wants to degrade all of our evolved threat-detection capabilities and then run roughshod over us.
The idea that transgender identity is a mental illness is so profoundly ignorant that it qualifies as bigotry on steroids. Every major medical and psychological organization in the U.S. that has taken a stand on transgender identity has denied that it is a mental illness. I'm talking about the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics; likewise btw for the World Health Organization. And what exactly are your qualifications, baby daddy, for diagnosing transgender people? I should add that your evidence-free insinuation that trans people pose a threat just makes your bigotry worse.